5 ms·

> In reality, the truth is always somewhere in the middle This is a dumb take in the context of outlandish conspiracy theories.

irrational 5y ago
They are clearly joking. They start off with conspiracy theorists not being real.
- oneoff786 5y ago
  I don’t think they’re joking. I would be curious to hear from them. A lot of conspiracy theorists think they’re in the middle. They identify some crazies in their group but still hang out with them and use their presence to justify their own, still extreme, opinions as the moderate view.
  - JKCalhoun 5y ago
    I don't think they were joking either — is incongruous with their first statement. Calling it a "dumb take" however is more likely to invite fighting rather than discussion. Is there any historical evidence that the conspiracy theorists were ever half-right (or right at all)? To be sure, there have been conspiracies in the past but our inability to keep a secret seems to have always trumped attempts to conceal (but IANAH, I am not a historian).
    - oneoff786 5y ago
      It’s a well established source of bias, especially in media. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_balance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_balance You should not assume views have merit by default.
  - irrational 5y ago
    Wait, do we mean different things by conspiracy theorists not being real? Because, otherwise, I can’t see how you can think this is not a joke. I think they mean there literally are no people alive/real that hold conspiracy theory views. Clearly there are real people who espouse conspiracy theories, therefore OP must be joking.
- bfgoodrich 5y ago
cameronh90 5y ago
If you're talking about lizard people, sure. But subliminal messaging is considered a conspiracy theory. Maybe it's not as obvious as messages played backwards, but if it's not happening already, there are definitely people working on it. The UK Government has a "nudge unit". I suppose arguably it's not a conspiracy theory any more because we all just assume it goes on. Are the vaccine conspiracies really that outlandish, in a world where the US government once intentionally infected black people with syphilis and let them die in the Tuskegee syphilis study? (I'm triple vaxxed, just pointing it out.) At one point before Snowden, the whole NSA thing was considered a conspiracy theory by many. World governments have done some really crazy things in the past and kept it secret for a long time. Why do we assume now is any different?
- alphabettsy 5y ago
  > intentionally infected black people with syphilis They didn’t infect them afaik. They didn’t treat them in order to study the progression. Only slightly less monstrous. But yea, most of the vaccine conspiracies are outlandish. Like the number 666 being in some patent number means it’s the end times, etc.
  - cameronh90 5y ago
    You're right, I was mixing it up with the Guatemala syphilis experiments. Clearly the vaccine conspiracy theories are mostly nuts, but I think what GP poster was getting at is that the truth is often somewhere in the middle. Yeah there are no microchips from Bill Gates in there, but.. I don't know.. will we end up finding that a bunch of safety data was fudged to get a vaccine out quickly? Maybe. That happens anyway, so it wouldn't surprise me that much. Certainly in the UK, some of the data was technically correct but presented to the public in a misleading way. Point is, I'm sure our governments are up to all sorts of shady stuff, just as they always have been, and in the future we'll find out that some of the conspiracy theories were not completely incorrect. The fact that they have done so much shady stuff in the past is what drives many of these conspiracy theories. And back to the original point, does it really seem that outlandish that CIA psyops might be intentionally seeding these groups with nutty beliefs because they were getting uncomfortably close to something actually true? We'll find out in 50 years, I suppose, if we're still alive...

irrational 5y ago

They are clearly joking. They start off with conspiracy theorists not being real.

oneoff786 5y ago
I don’t think they’re joking. I would be curious to hear from them. A lot of conspiracy theorists think they’re in the middle. They identify some crazies in their group but still hang out with them and use their presence to justify their own, still extreme, opinions as the moderate view.
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  I don't think they were joking either — is incongruous with their first statement. Calling it a "dumb take" however is more likely to invite fighting rather than discussion. Is there any historical evidence that the conspiracy theorists were ever half-right (or right at all)? To be sure, there have been conspiracies in the past but our inability to keep a secret seems to have always trumped attempts to conceal (but IANAH, I am not a historian).
  - oneoff786 5y ago
    It’s a well established source of bias, especially in media. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_balance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_balance You should not assume views have merit by default.
- irrational 5y ago
  Wait, do we mean different things by conspiracy theorists not being real? Because, otherwise, I can’t see how you can think this is not a joke. I think they mean there literally are no people alive/real that hold conspiracy theory views. Clearly there are real people who espouse conspiracy theories, therefore OP must be joking.
bfgoodrich 5y ago

cameronh90 5y ago

If you're talking about lizard people, sure. But subliminal messaging is considered a conspiracy theory. Maybe it's not as obvious as messages played backwards, but if it's not happening already, there are definitely people working on it. The UK Government has a "nudge unit". I suppose arguably it's not a conspiracy theory any more because we all just assume it goes on. Are the vaccine conspiracies really that outlandish, in a world where the US government once intentionally infected black people with syphilis and let them die in the Tuskegee syphilis study? (I'm triple vaxxed, just pointing it out.) At one point before Snowden, the whole NSA thing was considered a conspiracy theory by many. World governments have done some really crazy things in the past and kept it secret for a long time. Why do we assume now is any different?

alphabettsy 5y ago
> intentionally infected black people with syphilis They didn’t infect them afaik. They didn’t treat them in order to study the progression. Only slightly less monstrous. But yea, most of the vaccine conspiracies are outlandish. Like the number 666 being in some patent number means it’s the end times, etc.
- cameronh90 5y ago
  You're right, I was mixing it up with the Guatemala syphilis experiments. Clearly the vaccine conspiracy theories are mostly nuts, but I think what GP poster was getting at is that the truth is often somewhere in the middle. Yeah there are no microchips from Bill Gates in there, but.. I don't know.. will we end up finding that a bunch of safety data was fudged to get a vaccine out quickly? Maybe. That happens anyway, so it wouldn't surprise me that much. Certainly in the UK, some of the data was technically correct but presented to the public in a misleading way. Point is, I'm sure our governments are up to all sorts of shady stuff, just as they always have been, and in the future we'll find out that some of the conspiracy theories were not completely incorrect. The fact that they have done so much shady stuff in the past is what drives many of these conspiracy theories. And back to the original point, does it really seem that outlandish that CIA psyops might be intentionally seeding these groups with nutty beliefs because they were getting uncomfortably close to something actually true? We'll find out in 50 years, I suppose, if we're still alive...